Hinge-lid packs are known to those skilled in the art and are in widespread use in the tobacco industry for holding cigarettes in a crush resistant manner. An example of a hinge-lid pack is shown in GB 1 431 173 and such a pack generally holds ten to twenty individual cigarettes in a predetermined arrangement. Hinge-lid packs are typically produced from a pair of cardboard blanks.
However, such conventional packs have a tendency not to stay properly closed after the initial opening of the pack, such that the lid is disposed in a partially open position. This problem is sometimes referred to as “yawning” or “smiling”. Furthermore, if the pack is held upside down when closed, the lid may open under the weight of the smoking articles inside, and hence the smoking articles may fall out of the pack. It is therefore desirable to provide a hinge-lid pack with improved resistance to opening the lid in order to allow the pack to be closed securely.
In an attempt to overcome the above problem, it is known to provide a hinge-lid pack with a flap extending from the container portion of the pack that interlocks with a corresponding shoulder formed on an inner face of the lid. Such a pack provides a tactile indication that the lid is in a closed position. However, a disadvantage of such packs is that the walls of the lid must overlap the walls of the container, otherwise the flap will not engage with the shoulder and so will not ‘lock’ the lid. Therefore, it can be difficult to access and grip the smoking articles disposed in the container to remove them from the package because the container walls extend to the upper end of the smoking articles in the container.
It is also known to apply an enclosure for wrapping smoking articles formed by a barrier layer which has a closure label to close an aperture in the enclosure. Such a closure label has a tab which is grasped by a user to pull the closure label and reveal the aperture. However, it is a known problem that it is difficult for a user to grasp the tab in order to manipulate the cover.
Embodiments of the present invention seek to provide a package for smoking articles that overcomes or substantially alleviates the problems with packages referred to above.